Managerial Economics

Firm Strategies in Highly Competitive Markets

Markets that closely resemble the perfect competition model or its variants might be ideal from the standpoint of market customers and as a means of increasing social surplus. From the perspective of individual selling firms, highly competitive markets require that sellers carefully attend to cost and market conditions, while promising only modest returns on assets and invested capital for those firms that manage to survive. Despite the limited opportunity for profit in these markets over the long run, good and well-executed strategies can help firms in these markets be among the survivors and perhaps extend the period in which they can do better than sell products at average cost.

Michael Porter ...